In 2018, 996 people were shot dead by American law enforcement. In the years 2018-2019, there were 3 such fatalities for England and Wales. Three! Granted the population of the United States dwarfs that of the entire British Isles, but that is still one enormous disparity. The reason is of course America’s insane gun culture, but that doesn’t mean the police never overstep the mark in the UK.
China is a police state, surely everyone knows that. Leaving aside the fact that over the past thirty and more years its Government has raised the standard of living of most of its population massively. Hordes of Westerners are now living and working in China, doing everything from teaching English to industrial management. But, and this is a big but, a fattened slave is still a slave. China censors the Internet, and people who fall foul of the law for any trivial reason soon wish they hadn’t. How bad is China?
According to an article in the Guardian Friday, the police want to ban the sale of anonymous pay-as-you-go mobile phones. The rationale given for this is that drug dealers including organised gangs are using them. Presumably drug dealers also use knives and forks; should we ban them too?
